Film Review: Winters Bone

Director: Debra Granik

A 2010 independent movie which became renowned for being the breakthrough performance by Jennifer Lawrence that made her famous. She was nominated at the Golden Globes and the Oscars for Best Leading Actress but won neither, the film itself also made the Best Picture nominee list at the Oscars but again was unsuccessful. Although it did win the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival where it was released.

Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 17 year old living in rural Missouri with her two younger siblings and her mentally ill mother. They are a very poor family whose father Jessup has disappeared and left them, but after being arrested for manufacturing methamphetamine he posts bail by using their house as collateral. So Ree sets out to find her father and bring him home but runs into a seedy rural underworld involving her uncle Teardrop (John Hawkes).

Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) with her brother and sister.

A hillbilly noir as we are about as far more removed from world of gangsters so often portrayed on the big screen. This is small town Missouri where everybody knows each other and knows what each other is doing, outsiders are viewed with suspicion. Most of Ree's acquaintances in the village seem to be sort of relation to her and her family. The film starts out depicting the quite simple existence of the local people who in many ways live off the land foraging and killing their own food but from there it descends into a dark and mysterious world.

Jennifer Lawrence is excellent in the lead role, a vulnerable teenager but with an iron will to protect her family and her home from the bailiffs taking her home as well as from the local crooks. Her uncle played by John Hawkes is a deeply intense brooding character whose inner workings of his mind are never fully clear, he's prone to flying off the handle very quickly and Hawkes is at his eerie best similar to his role in Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene. Its deeply harrowing viewing as the film progresses but its two lead roles are simply superb and it produces a fascinating climax.

3.5/4 Bleak and harrowing drama